Comet Missions

The Comet Nucleus Tour (CONTOUR) was suppose to fly around these three comets. Unfortunately, contact with the spacecraft was lost less than a month into the mission. CONTOUR has not been heard from since then.

When Deep Impact nears the comet Tempel 1, it will separate into two parts. One part will fly by the comet and record data. The second part is the "impactor"...it will crash into the comet nucleus so scientists can study the comet nucleus!

Deep Space 1 tested 12 new revolutionary technologies that will be used in future missions. It had a close encounter with comet Borrelly, and returned the best images ever from a comet. The spacecraft was retired in December 2001.

Galileo is not specifically a comet mission, but it was able to make the only direct observations of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 as over 20 fragments of the comet plunged into Jupiter's nightside atmosphere over a six-day interval.

Ulysses is not specifically a comet mission, but it is used to make observations of comets, especially those within 2 A.U. of the Sun and 20 degrees of the spacecraft. A Ulysses Comet Watch Network was set up in 1992 and includes 250 observers around the world. Professional and amateur observers along with Ulysses have observed comets Borrelly, D'Arrest, Encke, Mueller, Pons-Winnecke, Temple 2, Tuttle, Hale-Bopp and others.

You might also be interested in:

NASA chose Deep Impact to be part of a special series called the Discovery Program on July 7, 1999. The Discovery program specializes in low-cost, scientific projects. In May 2001, Deep Impact was given...more

The Galileo spacecraft was launched on October 19, 1989. Galileo had two parts: an orbiter and a descent probe that parachuted into Jupiter's atmosphere. Galileo's main mission was to explore Jupiter and...more

Six spacecraft flew by Halley's comet in 1986. There were two spacecraft launched from Japan, Suisei and Sakigake, and two from the Soviet Union, Vega 1 & 2. One spacecraft, ICE, from the United States...more

Stardust is the name of a space mission that studied a comet. NASA's Stardust spacecraft flew past a comet named Wild 2 in January 2004. During its flyby Stardust collected some dust particles from the...more

NASA’s Comet Nucleus Tour (CONTOUR), launched July 3, 2002. The CONTOUR spacecraft will fly by at least two comets, taking pictures and collecting dust from the nucleus of each comet to help scientists...more

We are sad to report that the Comet Nucleus Tour (CONTOUR) is currently lost in space. The CONTOUR spacecraft was launched July 3, 2002 to explore the nucleus of comets. It was scheduled to fly by at...more

For thousands of years, the Egyptian civilization used a written language called hieroglyphics. This language was used from ancient times through the last several centuries B.C. At this point, the Greeks...more